Elinor W. Bodian

Baltimore Sun

Elinor Bodian

Elinor Bodian (Baltimore Sun)

Frederick N. Rasmussen, The Baltimore Sun

Elinor W. Bodian, who worked as a medical illustrator at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for 40 years and was also an abstract painter, died Sept. 16 of heart disease at her Roland Park Place home.

She was 90.

The daughter of a mechanical engineer and a quality-control manager, she was born Elinor Widmont and raised on her family's farm in Dayton, Ohio.

After graduating from Fairview High School in 1939, she began her nursing studies at the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing.

"A professor noticed the detailed drawings she was making next to her notes," said a daughter, Brenda J. Bodian of Stoneleigh. "He introduced her to a staff medical illustrator in the university's surgical department who encouraged her to apply to the School of Arts as Applied to Medicine at Johns Hopkins University."

Ms. Bodian said her mother described the experience as "life-changing, as she had no idea such a profession existed, but it proved to be an excellent match for her talents."

The department at Hopkins was founded in 1911 by Max Broedel, a German-born artist, who has been acknowledged as the father of medical illustration.

"Elinor had met Max Broedel, who died in 1941," said Gary P. Lees, chairman of the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine and director of the master's program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "But she studied under James Didusch and Ranice W. Crosby."

Mrs. Bodian was a certified medical illustrator when she graduated in 1944.

"She was very adept with the pen and the pencil, and her illustrations were filled with lovely tones and very attractive and authentic," said Mr. Lees. "Also, by the 1940s, the quality of medical textbooks had improved, and she was certainly one of the best illustrators."

While a student, Mrs. Bodian worked for Dr. Richard Wesley TeLinde, who had been chairman of the gynecology department at the Hopkins medical school. She illustrated his work, "Operative Gynecology," which has been called "the bible" of gynecology.

Mrs. Bodian worked on the text's revisions through the sixth edition, which was published in the 1980s.

"She found surgery very interesting but wrote that 'neurology stole my imagination,''' said her daughter, Ms. Bodian.

Over the years, she worked for various neurologists at Hopkins, including Dr. Vernon Mountcastle.

Through her 40-year career, Mrs. Bodian illustrated a wide variety of medical subjects. In addition to gynecology and obstetrics, those subjects included hematology, surgical nursing, the inner ear, neurology, neurophysiology and the first-seen poliomyelitis virus.

In addition, she also illustrated a movie on embryo movements, and continued to remain connected to the department until she was well into her 80s.

"I remember when she was doing freelance medical illustration at home and my friends would come over and freak out because there floating on a table in a bottle of formaldehyde would be a brain she was drawing," Ms. Bodian said with a laugh. "For us, that was perfectly normal."

"Elinor was always an enthusiastic illustrator and a true Hopkins alumnae. She had been so proud that she had been a student at Hopkins," said Mr. Lees, who added that she worked in the department's archives in recent years, assisting in the archiving of artwork.

"She also continued to meet and encourage our students," he said. "She also endowed a scholarship in her name — the Elinor Widmont Bodian Scholarship in Medical Art."

While at Hopkins, she met and Dr. David Bodian, whom she married in 1944. Dr. Bodian laid the basis for development of the polio vaccine in a series of critical discoveries. He was later chairman of the Hopkins department of anatomy from 1957 to 1977.

In 1953, the couple purchased a converted Ruxton barn, which they remodeled to make room for their five children.

"Because of her young children, Mrs. Bodian avoided sumptuous furnishings, but her practical choices make for a warm and inviting house," said a 1963 article in the old Sunday Sun Magazine. "She favors the clean lines and comfort of contemporary Scandinavian pieces, many of which she purchased in Sweden."

Mrs. Bodian, who later lived in Tuscany-Canterbury and Guilford, was a successful abstract painter. She exhibited her work at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Turner Auditorium at Hopkins and Baltimore Arts Tower, among other venues.

Mrs. Bodian once wrote, "After the precise techniques required for medical illustration, I searched for a free, large method to express ideas and beauty."

She was a member of Artists Equity and the Associated Medical Illustrators.

"Even though she had very bad arthritis, she was still working a little bit at Roland Park Place," her daughter said.

Liberal politically, Mrs. Bodian was "a fierce opponent of racial bigotry," said her daughter, and would not patronize restaurants that refused service to African-Americans. She also was an anti-war activist.

She enjoyed vacationing in Woods Hole, Mass., and attending the theater. She was also a 40-year member of the Women's Club of the Johns Hopkins University.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Nov. 5 at Roland Park Place, 830 W. 40th St.

Her husband died in 1992.

In addition to her daughter, survivors include two sons, Alex D. Bodian of Coopersburg, Pa., and Marc O. Bodian of Boulder, Colo.; two other daughters, Helen M. Bodian of New York City and Marion E. Bodian of Austin, Texas; and five grandchildren.